A Universal Christmas Jobmatch

It’s Christmas Morning, 9am, what better time than this to check what’s on Universal Jobmatch.

Yes, I suppose this is a bit sad, but Christmas doesn’t mean much to me so I won’t be doing anything different today other than eat a roast dinner (something I do too little off all year round). I thought it might be amusing to run a wee experiment into the veracity of this god-awful site on the most unlikely day to apply for jobs. I shall log on early and check back during the day to see how much stuff gets uploaded (or appears to) and what the quality of these jobs seems to be. I read someone got sanctioned for not applying for jobs on Christmas so I thought, what better day to test the site.

Unfortunately we’re off to a rather depressing start as there seem to be 12 pages of jobs within 10 miles of me (if you set it any further it will be unmanageable) and dated (i.e. uploaded) today. By way of comparison yesterday was 3 pages at this time and the average seems to be about 5.

From the first page alone, most of the jobs come from ‘Company Confidential’ while the rest are ‘CV Library (Jobs Warehouse Only)’. Both of these I suspect are automated mail spam nonsense, though I have no idea for sure. I don’t know who owns or runs (or automates) these sources at all, that’s the problem – you are never given any information at all. Not even an employer name.

It’s only on page 4 that I find a different source: ‘Thistle rec’ (I think it’s meant to be a recruitment agency). That’s a name I don’t recognise. There are two jobs listed one is for a Deputy Manager. The advert is another appalling cut and paste job, evident by the faulty layout (no space after the full stops, which doesn’t make reading it easy). I Google a portion of the text and the job is actually in Scotland. That’s a lot more than 10 miles away. This is nothing new for Universal Jobmatch; good to see the site isn’t taking a break from being crap.

Another two vacancies from ‘CIT’ (I’ve no idea) are listed, including one for a ‘customer collections advisor – housing’ which is local, but closed on the 19^th. Why is it being listed today then, of all days? The advert links to another recruitment agency site ‘ukstaffsearch’, but if that’s the quality of their adverts what’s the point, and who are ‘CIT’?

One of the most annoying features of UJM is in how it continually seems to shuffle the adverts. When I click to load the next page of vacancies instead of actually doing that, a simple enough task, it seems to instead shuffle what’s already been seen and mix it with what you haven’t seen, like a broken ipod. Now I’m getting adverts on the page that I’ve already seen – that I’ve just looked at! How on earth is someone meant to navigate this nonsense? Given how generic most of these ads (e.g. ‘customer service operator’) are you have to assume they are different vacancies and so you waste your time clicking to find out it isn’t.

At this point a thirteenth page has been added to the total page count. It’s not even half past nine. I need breakfast. I am aware this may screw up this experiment as when I return to the site later I fully expect another bazillion pages to have been added and the whole thing to be shuffled the next time I click. It is two steps back for every step forward.

I return, having broken my fast and had a walk in the cold (at least it’s not raining). Now there are a total of 15 pages. Again it’s mostly ‘Company Confidential’. I’ve no idea why they would be confidential given that if you work for them surely you would have to know who’s paying your wages. Why does the DWP allow these employers (or more likely the agents brokering these supposed vacancies) to hide?

Most of the jobs do seem to be actually quite skilled or specific, for example there is an advert for a locum GP (the link is yet another agency website called ‘jobsball’ – maybe that’s an agency specifically for trained doctors). Again the UJM blurb is another cut and paste job. That makes me suspect it wasn’t submitted by the employer or even Jobsball. This means there must be people in the DWP trawling these sites and sticking stuff on – perhaps Santa Duncan Smith has a bunch of workfare elves slaving away over Christmas.

There are actually quite a few GP/locum jobs. Other adverts are for engineers and managers and nurses (there are lots of nursing homes round here). Surfing the site is becoming increasingly difficult due to the ‘shuffle’ problem above; I’ve now seen the ‘CIT’ jobs for a third time in as many pages. I’m about halfway through at this point. I’m already tired. Get a life.

About 8 pages in and there’s another source, something called ‘Adzuna’. But click the link and all Adzuna seems to do is redirect to another source, the agency hosting the link. However as we have seen before on UJM this source might not even be the first or original host for the link. It really is a hall of mirrors.

Another break while I explain all the vegetables I hate (HATE!) to my mother. I don’t like sprouts, or parsnips. Sprouts are evil little things and parsnips have fooled me into thinking they were yummy roast potatoes once too often. “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice…you can’t get fooled again (thanks George).”

Needless to say a lot of these jobs are a mixture of vague ‘customer service’ positions (anything from call centre, sales, to retail, to just about anything), ‘trainee’ positions that are usually apprenticeships and low paid, or the eponymous catalogue distribution. It seems to be either badly advertised, poorly explained cut and paste jobs, and the high end stuff (such as the aforementioned locum position). There is no middle ground; no regular vacancies advertised sensibly. You must buy into the spiel (if you can read the ad); submit your personal details to websites you would never otherwise trust. Such as this, for example. It hardly looks like something reputable and I’ve seen worse. That position is also aimed at people aged 16-19; perhaps obvious when you think about it but since the UJM ad doesn’t mention this it’s possible anyone could be compelled to apply which would be stupid.

I have no idea who ‘company confidential’ are, or who hides behind that title or why they are allowed to. I don’t know what CV Library (Jobs Warehouse) means. Googling helps not one bit; there are so many recruitment websites, agencies and online pages, likely encompassing a wide range of quality and reliability, that it becomes an endless fractal. You click one link it takes you to another, and another and another. You search the web to find a source and it’s the same.

According to an FOI request ‘company confidential’ is to protect vulnerable groups. It allows them to advertise without giving details out, an example being someone looking to recruit home help without giving out who they are. I can understand that, but does that really apply to most of what is listed as ‘company confidential’? Surely it would be obvious from the nature of the vacancy or even the title. As such claimants cannot exempt themselves on the basis they don’t know to whom they are sending their details. For example, one advert says “Dream Medical are seeking a Consultant in Clinical Oncology for a client of ours in Bristol.”

That came from a Jobsball link as well. Thus, Jobsball are acting on behalf of ‘Dream Medical’ acting on behalf of a client unnamed. But that client is most likely to be a hospital of some kind, why the secrecy? I can’t imagine a vulnerable individual will be able to hire (or afford to hire) a cancer consultant!

I have a feeling I could be at this all day and I’m done. It’s Christmas Day, though obviously not somewhere in the DWP. It’s two o'clock, I’m hungry (cook woman, cook!), and I’ve looked at 15 pages of adverts all supposedly posted or uploaded on December 25^th 2013. Make of that what you will, happy Christmas!

Larry and Tarquin

This is the tale of two boys. We will call them Tarquin and Larry.

Tarquin and Larry never used to be friends; their families came from either side of the tracks, so to speak. But over the years they managed to find common ground. As the world got smaller they both began to recognise similar interests in acquiring as much pocket money as possible. It was a case of mutual self interest, rather than anything deeper or nobler. Over the years they became greedy.

Then, in 2008, they got caught stealing from a sweet shop. Both boys were culpable but Tarquin was lucky in that he was stood behind Larry when the shopkeeper came into the front of the shop from his office out back. Consequently he was able to pocket his candy without being noticed. At the same time as the shopkeeper saw what Larry was holding, catching him red handed, Tarquin stepped back and flung out his arm, finger pointing straight toward his friend: “it was him, sir!”

Larry, chastised and burning, confessed and set about paying back the shopkeeper. Unfortunately for Larry there had been a crime wave throughout town. All the other sweet shops, candy stores, and confectioners were being robbed as well. Larry felt so ashamed that he went to as many of them as he could; explaining himself he offered to help them. Again he was betrayed by his former friend; with the help of his wealthy and influential family Tarquin had blamed the robberies on Larry (even though Larry couldn’t be everywhere at once) and his family.

Sadly for Larry, his family had so admired Tarquin that even they began to question Larry. How could they ever trust him again? His friends turned away and people, upon meeting him, assumed the worst. If he’d done it once, they thought, surely he’d do it again.

But the biggest tragedy of all is that Larry now believes he was right to do what he did and that Tarquin’s way of living is an ideal worth striving for.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone kind enough to read and comment on my blog!

Dated

The day before an acquaintance I hadn’t seen for a while was telling me that his tribunal was successful. He has been placed into the support group for two years, which is a great result. I told him I was waiting to hear and that I could hear today, tomorrow the next few months. Turns out it was tomorrow; the next day I got my tribunal date through. I’m to be seen at the local magistrates court (apparently in one of the rooms within as the regular venue in Briustol is chock a block) on the 30^th. To say that I am apprehensive is to put it midlly.

A few weeks before I made a last ditch attempt to persuade my GP to write a letter supporting the problems I have. All he needed to do was write confirming what I’d told the CAB in respect of the WCA descriptors. This is the only language the system, and thus the appeal, will understand. He said that he would, after, again, another episde of me having to explain to him how it all works. What I got back was not what I consider to be particularly helopful. He has taken it upon himself to briefly say that I have some problems, mildly confirming some of what the CAB wanted, but also to go off and express his own feelings about the whole thing. Unfortunately and quite surprisingly the CAB passed this on to the tribunal (as they do for all supporting evidence). They say they can try and counter the negative stuff that’s on the letter (such as the GP saying he thinks I can work!) by referring to the positive stuff. Either way it won’t matter; what’s done is done.

In short, I don’t think I have a cat in hell’s chance of winning, but you never know. I’m not looiking to get into the support group. All I can do, assuming I don’t completely lose my shit on the day and have a massive anxiety attack (or have to share a waiting room with people waiting to be seen my magistrates for stealing cars or dealing crack or something), is point to the evidence that’s there. I think, from what I have presented even if tangentially, that I do have problems and they do affect me. The real question is whether these problems are recognised by the ESA system and to what degree. This has been the problem all along: am I ESA or JSA? I think I’m somewhere in between, but to the ‘anti-scrounger’ elite that, I fear, is just an excuse.

Curiously my friend managed to pass without the CAB’s help (his problems are not the same as mine, though they are also ‘mentally based’). He’s in the support group, but only temporarily. This further proves how the system is flawed. The argument has been that the WRAG is for people who ‘can work at some point in the future’, according to the doctors, while the Support group is for those that can’t due to incurable and chronic conditions. If someone is put into the Support group on a time limited basis, such as my friend, then how is that different to the WRAG? I will try and argue that ESA is there to support people – even if they ‘can work’ (though I’m not confident about this as I suspect it will seem highly precocious).

Time will tell. I can’t say I’m keen to sign on again.

The World According To Amazon

Amazon online; it all seemed so great.

A few years ago I wanted to use my Amazon account to try and make a living. I’d seen a few people in the unemployment support industry including the Shaw Trust, and a group called First Step (they are all called ‘step’ or something ‘step’). Nothing came of it other than vague promises of moral support, but no actual help getting anything off the ground (i.e. money, since stock doesn’t come free – unlike said moral support).

Perhaps that’s just as well as recent journalistic incursions into the secret world of Amazon’s elves paints a very grim picture. I still have my Amazon account and I had used it quite recently to sell a DVD. Unfortunately it’s the only game in town; like the big supermarket chains it has been allowed – even financially assisted – to creep into and take over our lives. In fact one o the reasons I liked using them was because I didn’t have to take my credit card details to other internet sites and increase the risk of fraud (though I have no idea how secure Amazon accounts are).

Now I wonder if it’s really worth supporting this company – even through third party sellers such as I had hoped to become. For instance, I can buy a second hand novel for pennies and postage. Amazon’s cut is around 20% so they aren’t making much from such sales at all, though they still make something. More importantly those are not orders that have to be picked by people run ragged in their appalling workhouses.

It shouldn’t be such a conundrum: anyone with any morality should realise, myself included, that this organisation is yet another corporate exploiter. They are clearly and obviously abusing staff. But convenience is such an aphrodisiac – where else can I legally acquire MP3 albums, even though Amazon charges a fortune for such things? How else can I offload books games and DVD’s I no longer want? I suppose that’s what charity shops are for.

I have wondered why charity shops don’t adopt a more business like regime, and actually buy stuff. Rather than rely on donations, they could pay a nominal fee – it doesn’t have to be much at all. That way they can attach a few stipulations, insisting, for example, sellers at least wash the clothes they intend to offload. This would also prevent people just dumping bin bags full of stuff (of any quality) outside the shop for the staff to pick up and sort through the next day. Given the perks and the profit margins charity shops enjoy I don’t see this as a problem.

But back to Amazon; we now have a society that is so compliant to the pseudo-Christian work ethic that anyone who shows even momentary reluctance to slave themselves into blistery skinned oblivion is permanently marked as indolent. Even if your reluctance is founded on genuine concerns of being able to cope with the insanity of the workload you’re told that other people manage – and patently they do so the question then becomes: why can’t you? The lad on the recent Panorama documentary walked 11 miles around the warehouse – and that was just one day’s night shift! It’s the mob mentality, the herd: don’t think you’re unique or special, if other people can slog their guts out then you can cope too, even if you actually can’t.

This is the race to the bottom. Amazon pays the minimum wage (a bit more for night shift work, graciously). In other words they are a company that doesn’t value workers and begrudgingly gives them a wage – as little as they are legally allowed to pay. This increasingly is the norm; those defending this system, like the CBI, will ask “why should we pay more than we have to?” just as their accountants do when avoiding tax. Something else Amazon excels at.

In fact I would suggest that Amazon is more focussed on minimising its responsibility to society than paying its staff a wage many I’m sure would feel more represents the dismal unremitting nature of the job. Meanwhile Amazon has benefited tremendously from society: enjoying tax breaks and massive state investment to ‘encourage’ them to come to places like south Wales where it has a cowed and responsive labour market, due to years of deprivation. This is capitalism in action: benefits for the rich and the powerful, insecurity and a dog eat dog world for the rest. Amazon’s corporate masters can command the taxes paid by society through the state, but contributes as little as possible.

This is all defended by the Tories who think that, just because they are an employer, everything they do is acceptable. Once the government thinks that, the media thinks that (or perhaps it’s vice versa), and once the media and the government are on the same page public thinking is shaped. Consequently people are given no choice but to apply to Amazon if they come to town. No one will examine the ethics of the company and because others are desperate enough to accept the terms of conditions of their modern slavery (and who knows, some might enjoy it) the rest will have to like it or lump it, even though some will simply not be able to cope. The price of capitalism is your body and soul and what do you have to show for it? How likely is it that any one Amazon workhouse employee will ever get a seat at the top table?

The Gathering of Evidence

I’ve struggled for things to discuss recently. Not least of all because I have had a dodgy stomach for the best part of a weak and it’s rather knocked me for six. No doubt some bug that’s doing the rounds. I don’t cope with illnesses very well, no matter if they aren’t serious. But that’s just me.

Certainly there are things I could discuss, though other blogs are better at investigation than I; you can check some of them out from the links on the right. It seems a week doesn’t go by these days without some DWP legal challenge going awry (for them or us). How Duncan Smith remains in his job I simply do not know.

I have another appointment with my (other) doctor tomorrow; yet another attempt to explain what I need. I don’t know how many times I can go back and forth with people that seem almost institutionally unwilling to grasp the reality of the situation. Not only that but they also seem to believe that government policy, directly or indirectly, cannot be counted as a reason to experience problems. As a result one is left perched precariously in terms of support. The only benefit is that I am not in as bad a position as some. God knows how I’d manage if I needed to use a foodbank – nor even how I would get to one.

I am forced to change back to my previous doctor for two reasons: he is available at least some of the time locally, and because the current doctor is even more ignorant. The saddest part of all is that she assures me that I will get support, yet when pressed she doesn’t understand this won’t be possible. If I fail the tribunal she won’t be able to help. By not directly helping that outcome is made more likely (at least according to the CAB).

The great irony is at the heart of their ignorance: they refuse to see that ESA isn’t solely intended as a passport to a life of plasma screen fed indulgence and indolence. Yet because I’m the one asking for support my attempts to explain fall on deaf ears. Consequently they won’t underwrite, as evidence for the tribunal, the symptoms that the claim needs evidenced. However they are happy to offer assurances that I will get support while suggesting that work will set me free. This, if nothing else, betrays the nature of their ignorance: a complete lack of understanding of the reality of the labour market and the effect of government policy. It is as if they are saying “we can’t do anything about either of those things so we do not count them as hurdles or problems to overcome”. Yet problems they are.

Both doctors will and have written sick/fit notes, but balk at providing further evidence. They can’t verify this, but then who can verify the effect of mental health on someone? Who lives in my mind but me? Do I need to start cutting myself? Hearing voices? Stalk the streets with a knife? These horrible symptoms are too often the result of people whose problems have been underplayed and ignored for too long. Sticking their professional heads in the sand will not change things.

And yet the doctor I had been seeing recently (now permanently moved and not available locally) was happy to post off a load of peripheral notes and case history to the CAB. I had made my appointment to see her right after my meeting with the CAB advisor, yet she chose not to wait until I could explain what was required and why (or at least try). When I tried to clarify what the CAB wanted subsequently of course I was regarded as being ungrateful and that doing anything more, to rectify, would constitute the sort of extracurricular work doctors now feel intimidated by – even though no more than a page or two is all that is required.

It is this mixture of ignorance and indifference that is the problem. What people in my position need is a holistic approach. The systems involved should be in synergy, they should not be in opposition. Unfortunately this will remain the case as long as GP’s think the benefits system is neither their problem nor their remit, and the DWP insist on processes that do not reflect the reality of individual problems.

For example, the CAB, in writing back to me their concerns that the doctor hadn’t provided specific evidence (and I concede they may be a little too specific), mentioned the doctor had said ‘he is capable of work’. This is a problem because of how ESA works. It shouldn’t be a binary interpretation of health: yes/no in respect of ability to work. It is meant to be about facilitating support through recognising the conditions and problems present. That is what the CAB is asking of my GP: to acknowledge the particular problems. They aren’t even asking for a specific medical diagnosis. They just want a list of the problems; if that list scores 15 points (an arbitrary scoring arrangement beyond all of us involved that most us in the real world and dealing with this system recognise as such) then I am deemed to warrant ESA. But that doesn’t necessarily mean I couldn’t earn a living somehow. The question that should be asked and that should follow is: how?

Unfortunately we have a system that looks for an admission of ‘he can work’ because no matter how you qualify that statement, in terms of symptoms or conditions attached, you exclude yourself from state – and thus financial – support on grounds of health. What is left is a flooded labour market further swollen by people forced to participate that will at best struggle in competition. Until doctors realise this nothing will change and no amount of British trademark stoicism will help.

Aha, mm hmm, ahuh, yes, hmmm.

I think it’s fair to say, now, that the poor have been completely disenfranchised from the system and thus from society. This was made clear, in my opinion, with the appointment of Rachel Reeves as shadow work and pensions secretary. Her opening statement clearly laid out Labour’s desire to distance themselves from the lower classes and to fight IDS at his own game, which is, in my view, a race to the bottom.

This was also further reinforced this morning, amid the monsoon we appear to have moved beneath, in another appointment with my GP. To her credit she has agreed to support me with sick notes, but at the same time isn’t really helping me at all. Not to be ungrateful but facilitating survival rations is hardly the support one should expect from a civilised rich post industrial nation. Yet we are lucky to get even that.

I say ‘expect’ because she raised the point that I was sounding ‘entitled’. This has become a dirty word these days. It is capitalism’s code for “expecting things to be given without earning them in a way acceptable to the status quo”. Welfare claimants are entitled because they expect to receive an income more than dire poverty. This is how far we have sunk, that people with nothing who want to live are branded as greedy. Her point was that by wanting support I was behaving thus, yet I have been placed on the Work Programme and have received no help. At all. Where is the entitlement? Is that not what is supposed to happen? After all Salvation Army Employment Plus are not participating in this scheme for free (even though they argue they get nothing, more fool them). 

I don't even really know what to think. All I know is that this world is a hostile place to me. I can't get on with it. Whatever I think seems to be out of sorts and at odds with the convention of the day. Whatever I say is misunderstood. I am not knocking people that work in shops; I don't criticise the person that does the job and there are plenty of venues that would probably be a lot more fun to work in than, say, Tesco. But you get no help to find such a job - unless it happens to show up on Universal Jobmatch (I even tried explaining how crap that was, but of course I just sound like I'm having a moan). 

Curiously she commented that I have a lot of 'wherewithall'. What she means is that I know my own mind. Good, but is she saying I'm being a bit disingenuous or even dishonest? That, because I'm smart and perhaps more capable than should be right for someone claiming on the sick, my claims to have problems are unfounded. Again assumptions.

Some of us need help. I’m sure it’s not easy studying to be or working as a doctor, but that is an acceptable profession that, resources permitting, one can reasonably expect to try for. Yet when I told her that having worked in retail and as a cleaner she again felt I was being ‘entitled’ when I said those were not jobs I aspire to as a career. It seems that not wanting a career in a notoriously low paid sector or a job clearing up after other people is unreasonable. Sorry, but I doubt she would want either of those as careers either, and aren’t doctors entitled? Don’t they get paid well? Don’t they expect decent terms and conditions, particularly when it comes to after hours work? Who isn’t entitled? Not politicians, businessmen, corporations, or bankers. It’s ok to be a snob if you are in that position, but not otherwise. That’s hypocrisy.

I have all but given up on my GP surgery now. They simply don’t listen. They don’t understand the issues. She even suggested that I might have some empathy with the opposing point of view. In other words, what about those poor taxpayers having to personally bail out the poor – as if there is a queue of hard working souls outside the expensive rented doors of paupers passing a bucket of money down the line like firemen of old. That isn’t the function of social security; it’s to keep society together and to protect people for the greater good. I’m not asking for a prescription I can take down Bright House for a massive plasma screen TV. But I’m supposed to empathise with the difficult position the government is in with a straight face while talking to a GP that clearly knows nothing about what is really happening. Of course if I make that point I seem to overthrow objectivity and thus destroy my own credibility. It is a no win situation.

I tried explaining that GP’s need to understand the benefit system and the motive of the maniacs in power. I fear it falls on deaf ears. She has this annoying habit of asking a question and then, before I can even respond, to start nodding and saying “Aha, mm hmm, ahuh, yes, hmmm.” as if she’s actually listening. It’s almost comical it’s so obvious. I wonder if she even realises she’s doing it. It comes to something when even the medical profession are swayed by the right wing ideas that dominate, but it is hardly surprising. The conditioning is everywhere and by not allowing me the space to properly express myself I simply do not get taken seriously. Consequently it’s easy to resort to stereotypes and lazy assumptions. For example she, like the rest of them, continues to make the point that living perpetually on the sick is undesirable. I have tried many times to explain how this is no longer possible. Eventually I will have a tribunal and at the very least the decision will be taken out of her hands. A year later and the ESA entitlement, if I make it into the WRAG, will end. Of course this is too much information to get across without her interrupting, which she does. A lot. Aha, mm hmm, ahuh, yes, hmmm.

Pride And Benefits

There was a programme called ‘On Benefits and Proud’ on, it should come as no surprise, Channel 5 this past Monday. I didn’t watch it. I didn’t have the stomach. Judging by the twitter feed, it was probably a wise decision. That of course will not stop me from commenting – much like facts and evidence do not stop the right wing trolls from braying.

The programme apparently focussed on a mother of 11 children, which, in the style of Chris Huhne, exceeds the legal limit for scrounger progeny. Unemployed people aren’t allowed to have children and the authorities should have the ability to travel backwards through time and, using knowledge of the future, enforce some kind of Philip K Dick dystopian prevention. Easy target number one. The other two case studies were a pair of single mothers who have the audacity to live in a high rent area, and a long term unemployed pair of Liverpudlians; those well known itinerants.

This is ridiculous; it seems, at the risk of sexism, very easy to pick on female subjects. Single mothers of course are easy targets indeed: they can’t reverse their situation and there is very little they can do to change it – not that they necessarily should. It’s fair to say that most love their children and look out for them as best they can. Why would you assume otherwise – because they are scroungers of course! Look she has 11 kids! Clearly irresponsible!

This article presents a fun deconstruction of what was likely a very predictable affair.

Central to the whole deal is of course the now-ingrained notion of ‘something for nothing’; that the unemployed receive life’s rewards without having to earn them. This message is intended to set those that do work against these people. Unfortunately those who buy into this message do not understand how they themselves have to tolerate increasingly harsh terms and conditions. Discussion of today’s strike by teachers puts this into focus: people bemoaning the ‘scrounging’ teachers for not being as compliant as they. This is the race to the bottom.

Ironically the best thing a ‘scrounger’ can do with their benefits bonanza (which is nothing but) would be to spend it. Yet this is seen as evidence of the overly generous amounts claimants receive. As if having enough to spend is having too much. But the money goes back into the system, which is the best outcome. The poor spend more of their money in this way than the rich, as well as paying a greater percentage of their income in taxes. Notice also the Tories speak about welfare – benefits – being out of control. This is their way of admitting they don’t dare just cut the amount received (yet): instead they say they have to reign in spending. It’s out of control, like a wild animal, and we have to tame it, unlike the opposition whose policies bred this feral beast. Nonsense of course.

Tragically the libdems count as evidence of their positive influence over their Tory overlords that they have lifted people out of tax. So instead of fighting for better and higher wages – they reduce the amount the government has to spend: nobody wins!

There’s nothing generous about benefits, and they are given out begrudgingly. Despite that they can be stopped at a moment’s notice on a whim. This is the reverse of most people’s working experience. But that’s the kind of work experience they don’t want people to have.

As people on benefits don’t have much of an income – particularly outside of cities where transport is relatively plentiful and human contact more accessible – they tend to spend more time ‘sitting on their arse’. I’m not sure how this is a different kind of ‘sitting’ than is performed by people working in offices, such as the staff of Saving Britain Money (or any of the other parasite call centres that ring every fucking day). It’s an easy way to stigmatise people, especially if they are also watching TV while ‘sitting on their arse’, or, shudder, playing a video game. It’s easy to show a snapshot of someone in this way and infer that is how they spend all their time. They clearly should be ‘doing something useful’ which is where workfare comes in. Get them off their backsides, something for something, get them contributing! However there is no support for the unemployed – that’s the plain cold hard reality. There is no support; the Work Programme is a dismal failure and I personally have had no contact from them in May (which will no doubt be my fault even though they have nothing to offer, by their own admission). If there was support and it was meaningful and properly helpful (not just stigmatisation and bullying) then people would struggle to find the time to attend a thirty hour a week unpaid work placement. Lucky then!

We do not have enough paid work for people to do. Unpaid work breaks the social contract and, worse, devalues the only thing some people have to sell, which is their labour and their time. They are forced into these situations by this government, and that is why it must be called slavery. This has negative consequences for everyone, including those in work whose own positions are jeopardised. There may be a space for a discussion on how unemployed people can spend their time and how communities – including employed as well as unemployed members – can contribute to the betterment of their corner of the country. But that does not negate the need for people, in this system, to receive an income. If you deny them that you deny them the means to not just contribute or participate, but to survive.

That brings us to the sanction regime. With the passing of Liam Byrne from the shadow DWP seat I had hoped for something more progressive. This it seems was not to be. Rachel Reeves, his replacement, appears intent on fighting IDS for the same votes and over the same proposition: who can be the toughest on scroungers. Aside from this being a hopeless position for any opposition politician (you might as well just join the bloody Tories), it tells me two things:

Firstly that Labour doesn’t care about me, my vote, my opinions, or my values. I do not matter to them or their plans for the country.

Secondly that Reeves believes sanctioning people is a productive course of action. why should people be punished for being poor or not seeking work in the required way – or indeed anything, as the DWP seems hellishly trigger happy these days (the PCS recently caught them out planning a week long sanction celebration).

How does Labour think this builds a society: pushing people beyond and stranding them there isn’t the action of a socially minded party? It is the action of a psychopath, and we already have one of those. Unfortunately he is egged on by the braying masses that think everyone on benefit should feel anything but pride. Channel 5 is the stocks; bring your own rotten fruit.

Into The Nightmare; the return of Workfare

I’m not really sure what to say here. I’m not entirely sure what I can add to the blogosphere that has already commented on the recent Tory onslaught. I suppose I could attempt to hint at possible division between Osbourne and IDS because of the former announcing welfare policy ahead of the latter. Maybe I could speculate on the reason for this hard shift further (as if that were possible) to the right as an attempt to win over UKIP voters who are at the swivel eyed edge of social policy.

So again the spectre of workfare haunts the unemployed. Thanks to the likes of the Policy Exchange and their odious attitude toward work and unemployment, it is back on the agenda, and how. Apparently from next April workfare will be part of a brutal and thus ineffectual package of measures aimed at the unemployed, again focussing on them as the composers of their own misfortune. Again avoiding blame for the failings of policy and an economic system that rewards the Tories and rejects the poor.

This policy doesn’t work. It cannot work. No pun intended. How can it? There are no vacancies. By virtue of existing it proves the failure of policy because if there were vacancies surely people would be employed and thus paid which would mean they don’t have to claim – something right wingers forget: workfare slaves still get benefits. This is just appeasement based on ignorance and prejudice. It allows the government to sound tough but not act, and we all know that Duncan Smith is not a man of action.

This ironically is just further admission of this miserable little tyrant’s failure and a projection of his own insecurity. He is an incompetent; a blustering hectoring self entitled hypocrite far too eager to point to the perceived failings of others in a bid to assuage his own. This package of hard measures has been hinted at before: the Community Action Programme for example announced months ago was intended to succeed the Work Programme for the ‘hard to help’. Again it implies that the fault of those ‘hard to help’ lies not with the Programme, not with greedy bullying providers, but with the claimant. This then is his punishment, which now includes, incredibly, a plan to force daily nine-to-five attendance at DWP facilities if not actual Jobcentres (even though the latter would be completely unsuitable). This cannot be seen as anything other than a brutal admission of the failing of every Tory welfare policy thus far, particularly the Work Programme.

How much tougher are the Tories – with the fawning assistance of their craven gutless libdem enablers – going to be on claimants, on the poor? How much harder? What happens next year when this latest round of changes produces no more a success than the Work Programme (failing for another year)? Will IDS return to claim his reforms are so successful that now the unemployed need sectioning, or sent straight to prison, or shipped off as conscripts to Afghan war zones? Yet another hammer blow to the face yet again labelled as ‘getting tough on the something for nothing culture’; a culture that only exists in palace of Westminster or the imaginations of those that read the Daily Mail.

How much longer are we going to tolerate the CBI running our lives? These so called business ‘leaders’ argue in favour of educational impoverishment by shifting the goalposts of employment. These people demean school leavers and teachers by claiming all schools nowadays (i.e. it’s all labour’s fault – an excuse I’ve heard more this week than in three years) do is teach people how to text and stab. These business ‘leaders’ raise the bar for any job, no matter how menial, by making increasingly ridiculous demands, in a conveniently hyper-competitive labour market, on individuals no matter how simple or menial the job. Then, when a kid fails to make this artificially high grade, he, like the rest of the unemployed, is to blame. It’s a disgrace, to coin a phrase.

But there are those that love the idea of workfare. People so bitter and twisted they want to see the knife stuck in the bellies of those they perceive are getting something for nothing. These are people that make a virtue of never having claimed – despite years of paying into a system that has given them nothing but insecurity and intellectual poverty. They are happy to tear strips off others over stuff – material goods that they aspire to owning but can’t because they earn too little. That is all the fault of the unemployed who must be made to work even if it means undermining the insecure jobs such people are doing. People are so invested in their experience that they cannot see another, better, way. I’ve worked all my life, they say, I’ve burned myself out, so, to paraphrase Bill Hicks, this can’t be just a ride! It must be real because my stake in this is too much to lose, even though I can’t take it with me when I die.

According to the Express mandatory jobcentre attendance will end the something for nothing culture. How? They will still receive the benefits that the likes of the Express moan about in the first place. It’s punitive. It’s about being seen to keep the unemployed in their place, hence community service as part of the proposed workfare package; I’ve no doubt the unemployed, thusly criminalised, will be made to wear hi-vis attire to broadcast the fact. 35 hours a day involving people cooped up in a facility (though probably not an actual JC as they haven’t a prayer of being fit for purpose – so that’s more money being spent pursuing this agenda). It is demeaning; infantilising people who will have to raise their hand and ask ‘please sir can I go to toilet!’ Adults will be reduced in the name of improving themselves. What kind of curriculum can possibly encompass a 5 day 9-5 routine? Even the Work Programme cannot provide enough resources. It will become a pressure cooker with mental health sufferers at the very sharp edge because you can be sure that, just as with the Work Programme, they will get no support.

I can’t think of any employer who would regard this as representative of a working routine: how many happy employees spend 7 hours a day looking for a better life?

Who speaks for us? There was a welfare to work conference, starring (of course) Mark Hoban, earlier this year (and probably every year). Representatives from all across the private sector were invited to discuss further means to screw the poor, but who wasn’t invited – the poor themselves. No one bothers to invite representatives from the unemployed community. No one thinks to ask our opinion as those affected by this policy. If they reject us, I say reject them. Let’s have more people quit their jobs. Let’s leave the economy in tatters then maybe they will listen.

The Ignorance of GP's

A phone call appointment with my GP confirms they simply do not understand the benefit system, specifically with regard to ESA. My GP is absolutely adamant that, even if I fail a tribunal she can somehow intervene so that I don’t end up with nothing. Oh how I tried; tried to explain that if you fail a tribunal that’s it. At least that’s my understanding. Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps the medical community does have some power in this situation but the tribunal is the last port of call; appeals do not get a further chance. This is the highest authority.

You see the CAB had asked the GP to write a simple letter (wouldn’t even take 2 pages) underlining what I had told them. My GP had previously said she can’t verify those issues and so couldn’t write a letter. I tried again today to explain this is what is necessary – because this is what is necessary. Unfortunately she doesn’t want to write a letter. Ironically she had no problem digging up a ton of information, none of it particularly helpful or relevant to the CAB’s request, way more than a letter would require.

This whole situation is bizarre to the point of insanity: what would really help is if the CAB could directly explain this to the GP. Instead I’m going to have to contact the CAB again and ask for further advice; maybe there is something they can do to explain to GP’s that don’t get it just how things work. It is ridiculous to suggest that, after failing a tribunal (should that happen), the GP can then intervene. Surely the question then becomes: why could you not simply write that letter in the first place? That is what the tribunal people would argue if the GP then decided to contact the DWP regarding a stoppage of ESA as a result. I suspect this is what the CAB will say also.

In her own weird way the GP is trying to be helpful, which is nice of course, but it is completely hobbled by her wilfulness in refusing to understand how this actually works. It is no more her fault than mine; blame the Tories. This is their mess. This is the product of welfare reform and the minutiae of which she ignores or doesn’t understand – why should she, I suppose, she is a doctor not a welfare advisor. Unfortunately a lot of people are now being forced to be welfare experts in having to help clients and patients untangle the mess created. It is not the patients’ fault either, but abandoning them is not an option.

She advised me to chase up the mental health people re: Aspergers diagnosis. Unfortunately if she had done this herself she might have found another reason to change her mind. It seems the waiting list for an appointment, despite new facilities being set up closer to home (which of course is great), is at least a year. I can’t see the tribunal people deigning to wait that long so as to facilitate a diagnosis. In fact they couldn’t even find a record on the system of her request for an appointment! Meanwhile she offered, as a compromise, that she’d write a letter if I got a diagnosis. Well that’s going to take a very long time, meanwhile I have to deal with the ESA system as is. Unfortunately, again, if she thinks she can help should I fail that tribunal I think she is in for a rude awakening: any subsequent ESA claims would fall under the new appeal system. This is the system (assuming it’s still on track) whereby appeals are effectively shut down pending a second decision maker’s assessment, which can be made without recourse to a time limit. These are the kinds of details that go beyond her understanding. Not only that, but I don’t think you can just go back to your GP and get a new sick note for a fresh claim; I think there is a waiting period at least wherein new claims will only be considered if the symptoms/problems differ. Again, she doesn’t understand it; this is what I mean by minutiae.

Fundamentally there needs to be a holistic approach. Why can the GP not be the one who processes a claim. Why do I need to see different people each with autonomy over a particular part of the process with no ability to connect or communicate? Why can’t the CAB explain things to my GP? Why aren’t GP’s made aware of or trained in these systems? Isn’t this important for them to know?

CAB vs GP

The CAB wrote to me the other day; a bundle of letters with a covering note explaining that this, what the GP has written, isn’t really going to help my appeal by and large. There may be something within that tangentially helps, this being the response to my GP writing to the JC last year. This was a naïve attempt by him (now her thanks to the difficulty of seeing a regular doctor, which I’m sure doesn’t help) to ask them how they are helping me. Of course they weren’t helping me, and neither were the Salvation Army whose own bullshit response was solicited; because of that bullshit quotient I’m reluctant to use that letter so I’m forced to try the GP again.

What the CAB need is for the doctor to verify how and which of the ESA descriptors affect me. Her response was to tell me that she couldn’t do that. Now I have to try again otherwise my appeal may be compromised. It certainly would benefit from a concrete diagnosis. The problem is that because mental health is invisible and because I have yet to hear back from the Asperger/ADD diagnosis people (despite being contacted at the start of August, apparently) she is antsy to write anything in support. From this I can infer she – cards on table – doesn’t really agree with my assessment of my issues and needs. I haven’t directly confronted her about that; in fact trying to do this with any GP has been extremely difficult. They do everything they can to head off any such attempt. I suspect that, if duly confronted, she will try to have it both ways and claim that’s not what she’s saying. I hope I’m wrong. I don’t have an infinite number of attempts to persuade her.

Thing is they don’t have nor do they offer any kind of alternative. It’s all very well to say this is my professional opinion, but where does that leave the patient? If you are to claim that you cannot verify then are you not making a diagnosis of some kind? Is that not a medical opinion? But where is the evidence to support that – no doctor, not even the person at the CMHT (I say person, they weren’t a doctor and I don’t know what their official title is), undertook such a process with me.

Equally, to sit and wait for an external body, in this case the Asperger/ADD people, to present the GP with a diagnosis, is unhelpful. With all due respect to her, I think the GP is relying on that too much, and that also puts me in an unfair position. I doubt also a tribunal hearing will agree to wait until such an appointment can be made and any subsequent report.

Doctors are still too naïve about this process. Still too reluctant to understand how it truly works (or doesn’t). Any attempt to explain it’s real purpose – curtailing entitlement and support – is regarded as being a bit silly, or worse. You – I – am just not taken seriously. That has to stop. The BMA has emphatically spoken out against the Work Capability Assessment, yet still individual GP’s are not interested; they don’t want to get their hands dirty. Perhaps they feel doing so will attract blame and censure. It is not enough to dodge your responsibility as a carer in helping people. Again ESA is, according to the government website, not solely for people that cannot work at all: it is for people who need help and support. I have yet to see either.

Grant Shapps vs The UN

Raquel Rolnik may resemble the thinking man’s Su Pollard, but she is actually the UN’s housing ‘rapporteur’. You can tell this means something, because the word is all fancy sounding, like. A bit like the word ‘compftroller’. I don’t really know what either word means. She’s come to Shite Britain to assess the impact of the ludicrous bedroom tax, also known, variously, as the spare room subsidy, or the under occupancy charge. No matter how the scum attempt to rebrand this hated and hateful policy, its true nature shines through.

In a supreme act of straight-faced irony her preliminary findings have been thoroughly rebuked; a distraught DWP spokes-toad claims Ms Rolnik ignored the numbers settling instead for anecdote. Wasn’t it Duncan Smith himself who relied on ‘cosmic ordering’ a few months back when faced with the facts about his policies? Didn’t he argue that, despite what the numbers actually said, he believed he was right and that’s all that mattered?

What must stick in his craw the most is that it comes from a foreigner – some dirty outsider sticking their beak into the affairs of decent honest pure bred British folk. It is, in the words of Grant Shapps “an absolute disgrace”. No, it isn’t for you, Jenny Foreigner, to criticise us! Consequently he plans to pen a missive demanding the attention of the UN’s general fucking secretary! As if he has nothing better to do than read complaints from whiny Tories. What does he think this will achieve? Of course the Tories still think the sun has yet to set on Britain and so these upstarts will apologise for their impertinence. Shapps then went on to observe that Ms Rolnik’s home country of Brazil has housing problems as if this disqualified her from commenting – as if she’s directly responsible for that situation! The absurdity!

So, in the mind of the Tories, the UN just decides, one morning, to send some lefty investigator over to stir up trouble amongst the plebs. Of course, that must be it. What other reason could there be?

Would the Tories be so bent out of shape if this ‘premature’ press release congratulated their thinking? Would they be saying her work was flawed by not speaking to the DWP if she endorsed their policy? Of course not. There is is; the heart of darkness exposed. Shapps dodges the question about the negative impact uncovered (though we all know) by Rolnik and instead tries to score points by claiming this policy eases waiting lists. No, Grant, all you’ve done is highlight government failings to address the housing crisis as well as ignore the crisis caused by the Bedroom Tax (and he don’t like it being called that neither). Idiot! Idiota!

The Tories have dismissed her work on the basis she’s only been here a couple of weeks and that, by not talking to the ministers concerned (she met with Eric Pickles apparently), her findings are to be ignored. It’s all such a travesty. But does anyone really think that the UN is going to just send a ‘special rapporteur’ to a couple of British housing estates to share a morning cuppa with some chavs and then call it a day? Is that what the government actually believes goes on at the UN? Probably; these swivel eyed loons routinely traduce these sorts of organisations when it suits them. Of course she came here just to meddle, with her nefarious foreign ways and unwelcome bureaucracy. What does she know? Well, if she has been speaking to those experiencing the sharp end of this policy, probably a lot more than Grant Shapps or Michael Green.

It goes beyond irony, however. This is the government that rattled the spirit stick of war less than a fortnight ago. Cameron and his out of touch coalition allies banging the drum to drop ordnance on Syria indiscriminately. That was most certainly a premature action (Rolnik’s full report is due next spring) and most certainly based on anecdote since we still don’t know whether Assad was responsible. Why would he do such a thing with the weapons inspectors in the same city and with the war going his way.

How the Tories function in the modern world I do not know. They are riddled with cognitive dissonance. It is simply inconceivable to them that anyone would disagree with their policies. It is simply inconceivable to them that anyone might find fault with them. So full of their own hubris and so convinced of their right to rule they cannot understand why someone might think the Bedroom Tax an exercise in hateful stupidity.

They cannot even understand why poor people are poor, what with all the flat screen televisions they own. It is gibbering simple mindedness of the sort espoused only a few days ago by Michael Gove; one of the most arrogant ministers this country has ever known. Bad life choices, he claims, are the cause – the sort that might lead someone to claim £7000 for expenses they shouldn’t have. No, wait, that was Michael Gove. Or to overextend themselves on someone else’s dime in purchasing expensive furniture for their state funded home. Sorry, nope, that’s Gove again. Oh dear. I’m sure he believes what he does is right – because he’s a Tory.

Capitalism Has Failed Us

What are they doing?

Our future is sold from under our noses; repossessed by people with no legitimate claim to it in the first place. This is the biggest and most insidious betrayal of our society – and people are blind to what is happening.

Recently, on Question Time, George Galloway advocated the ‘beatification’ of workfare hero Cait Reilly. She’s a hero because she stood up to the full weight of this disgusting system and helped expose the incompetence and lies at the heart of Mandatory Workfare.

This was the scheme, if you’ll remember, that saw Cait forced to abandon the work she had arranged herself to go and stack shelves in Poundland, a highly profitable group of austerity shitehawks. She was already doing what the DWP wanted her to do and that still wasn’t enough. Better, in their beady eyes, she make Mr Poundland a few more of those lovely pounds.

This week, those odious spongers and fantasists at the Taxpayers Alliance tried again to resurrect the idea of workfare, unaware its spectre hadn’t left the building. Chris Philip, another wannabe Tory top dog, authored a report claiming, inexplicably, workfare is good for the economy, and, of course, will help people get work. This is obvious bullshit, easily debunked elsewhere. Why champion workfare on the grounds of economics? Is this the default justification for every mad scheme going? It isn’t the fault of the unemployed that the economy is in so parlous a state.

We are living under a system that is failing. It is a slow motion destruction of every social good that proves, finally, the ruling elite are only in it for themselves. Fortunately for them the speed of destruction is such that people don’t notice. Doubly fortunately the media is either on their side or in their pocket. Thus when anyone speaks up in favour of progressive values or social justice the masses conjure images of Citizen Smith in their minds to facilitate dismissing, out of hand, such views. This is a kind of NLP – a method by which rationally presented views are immediately rendered comical or facile. No one even questions it. That is the job of the media – it certainly isn’t to present factual accounting of the days events!

This is what is stacked against us. They – the movers and shakers of this system – are a minority with power and wealth whose interests are to maintain that position and privilege, no matter the cost. No matter that it is we who pay. When it all collapses, and it will – indeed must, they will still be sitting pretty. That is the whole purpose of this system and it is incumbent on us, somehow (I’m by no means expert in revolution), to expose and challenge this as best we can.

Perhaps you still think I sound like someone that’s watched the Matrix once too often. Don’t worry I don’t subscribe to conspiracy theories, even though the capitalist neoliberal system is certainly a conspiracy of self interest. Let’s go back to unemployment then. What good does it do us to have our kids, fresh from school and university (if they are lucky enough to afford it, that is), forced into wage slavery. They are programmed to expect nothing more than the first job that comes along. Invariably that will be nothing of any value (or even any kind of decent wage). Refusal is not permitted and resistance is to be crushed and demeaned. Support or even compromise is completely out of the question. Cait Reilly found that out.

They tell us we are to be a competitive country, but how can we even achieve that if our kids can expect nothing more than a career in the social cancer that is the supermarket. These companies are like cockroaches; they can survive any kind of economic apocalypse and thrive during austerity. So of course, as they spread like an angry tumour across the country, there is always room for more low paid staff to be exploited. When we can’t even guarantee a wage thanks to zero hours, and when the government tells people they should be grateful to work in such places, notorious for their terms conditions and wages, for nothing, you know the ruling elite is working against us.

Yesterday I did some searching, as I occasionally do, for volunteer work. There isn’t a huge amount locally that’s not either charity shop work (been there, done that) and care work, which I don’t feel up to (you can’t be frivolous with people’s well being). My heart broke when I saw the number of positions for nothing more than companionship: befriending a lonely pensioner, or a person with learning disabilities.

Later that day I looked on Universal Jobmatch (I try to look as I think it’s good practice for when I inevitably fail ESA). Wading through the agency scams and low rent crap advertised I wondered why we aren’t paying people to be companions? Why are things backwards? What can be more fundamental to the wellbeing of a healthy society than the simple act of companionship? Are we saying that it’s better for people to work as minimum wage chattel for the insatiable supermarket than it is to sit and be a friend to a lonely human being? Why is one paid and not the other? Why don’t we have a government that supports this kind of social good?

This is why our system is broken and this is why it must be challenged and destroyed. How? I don’t know. But it must. There is no other choice.

Kids are taught in schools to aspire, but this is false hope. We have put a price on things that should not have one, like education. Knowledge is its own reward, but in this society it only serves a purpose if it’s profitable – so the rich can take a cut as our owners. We have allowed these people to own us and the land we live upon (fracking, anyone? No?). What is the point of an education system anymore if the best thing that can happen is a ‘taster’ session with a supermarket?

Three days unpaid work experience with Morrisons. This is the result of your hard work and your study. Of course, because these employers are so prevalent, there’s doubtless something of value they can offer but it only has value if you capitulate. If you refuse to play their game, then they can’t win.

This is why it is offensive to have the CBI lecture schools and traduce the efforts of teachers by accusing them of failing kids. We’ve heard all the scare stories about hordes of illiterate innumerate feral kids falling out of schools unable to work. Do we ever question the employers in this? Maybe the conditions are ridiculous: unnecessary make-work for a risible wage.

Who are these employers to lecture the ‘work ethic’ of school leavers and demand their gratitude when they don’t even pay a wage people can live on. Consequently a certain cuddly cockney TV chef is allowed to get away with what might seem uncharacteristically barbed comments from such a ‘cheeky chappy’ demanding kids be grateful to work utterly unreasonable hours. A man who had a lucky break with  TV career, unlike 99% of other aspiring cooks, the irony of which is that his position now leads those that look up to him to have even more unreasonable aspirations.

A man that made a tidy sum hawking Sainsbury’s product with a straight face.

Yet when does he ever speak out against the practices of a notoriously harsh industry; staff in kitchens are underpaid and overworked. However he’s given free reign to whine about ‘wet’ native brits as if he knows them all and using that as an excuse to hire immigrants while backhandedly criticising them as foreigners who shouldn’t be working in Britain.

No one’s forcing Jamie to hire foreigners. He could easily hire local staff, he just chooses not to. He’s a multi millionaire with, on presumes, a profitable empire. Jamie could advocate sensible conditions, not the 80-100 hours he outlines as the standard below which excuses are made and Brits are lazy for aspiring toward.

It all feeds into the system. In this he is a stooge; another useful idiot who appears to accept every media bogeyman going, from the evil EU to unfettered immigration. Incredibly he argues here against the EU believing that decades old nonsense about straight cucumbers – as if the people of the EU are biologically alien to the righteous British who would find EU standard vegetables somehow toxic. It’s like thinking they aren’t human abroad; the implication being they don’t value good quality food. Seriously Jamie?

He’s a public figure who unwittingly enforces the propaganda of the government: the serfs, for that’s what we are, deserve crap wages. Not only that but this propaganda always cites the ‘work ethic’, a pseudo religious construct of control, to keep people mollified, in line, and even divided – those that don’t have a work ethic are legitimate targets for Room 101 style hate from the rest. Look at the scroungers! Get angry!

Meanwhile these people face as much uncertainty as their kids. They could be out of work easily. Only then will the mask slip; only then will they get a real glimpse at just how nasty the capitalist elite really are when they find they are entitled to fuck all, just like Cait Reilly. She did the right thing – according to the government – and they still criticised her for it (even more so for daring to stand up and give them a bloody nose). In her response to Galloway and his effusive approval Baroness Kramer utterly disowned Cait’s efforts.

A Baroness (and a libdem) for fuck's sake; it’s something right out of dark ages Britain. That should tell you something right there. So what that she found her own voluntary work, geology and museums are meaningless, Cait should be grateful that the Coalition deigned to force her to work in a demeaning unpaid skivvy job for a highly profitable company (whose success comes from selling cheap knockoff goods).

This is the reality: it’s better for someone to work unpaid for the high street equivalent of some Delboy style market stall than to pursue science and technology. Just because it’s a little harder to get a career using a worthy degree we should abandon that and go stack shelves. (Geologists correctly lambasted IDS for his snide comment toward Cait’s degree by saying without geology there’d be no shelves for her to stack). However what help does the DWP offer in finding something using that degree? What do they do to support and ensure those that want to care for lonely people get a good wage and decent working conditions? Even when it might seem to be in its own interests, the system still screws you. This is because its interests are not the social good.

Creativity, art, science, research, technology, community – even compassion and friendship; none of these are intrinsically worthwhile to the system. They do not directly fill the pockets of the landowning gentrified elite. If they could, it might be different. That’s why these jobs are reduced to the level of volunteer work – and that’s not to say there’s anything wrong with voluntary work; I’m speaking in terms relative to the system.

To conclude: we should be championing those values above because that is how you build a worthwhile society. A world where there is no division because communities integrate over shared values. We all want to live free and in compassion with our neighbours. People should value art and creativity because it inspires others to better things. Science and technology should be valued so as to improve things and community building should be equally valued and sneered at. If the best we can manage is to champion supermarkets and other antisocial interests, then we have utterly failed.

Pagan

Summer fades and as it does so there is a hint of melancholy on the wind that makes all the days seem more precious. Soon the sunshine, that we have been blessed (or cursed, I suppose!) with this year, will be cold and the warmth gone. Accompanying this is a breeze that blows through the trees making the light hazy and yellow. It is times like these that tell us who we are. There is a connection between a person, what some might call his soul, and the living world; the world away from buildings, electricity, jobcentres and chemical weapons.

I am not religious. I abhor organised religions as systems of control that instil subservience and fear into people. We should not be afraid, though often we are. However I acknowledge the presence of what some might, in fluffy terms, call spirituality. I do not believe in new age philosophies; much of these beliefs are a kludge of older systems that now exist in syncretism; forms whose true natures are ignored by those that practice them. What matters to me is the world around me and how I fit into that.

So I suppose, in a strange way, that makes me a pagan. That is, someone who marks the passage of time through the seasons and in the cycle of years months and days. Some might do this with a nod to the supernatural, a goddess or a belief in Gaia. I’m not sure I’d subscribe to that, but the world is a living thing, a complex biosphere of interrelated forces and life forms. As I walk through the fading summer light I see the changes in the patterns of wildlife that thrive now, as the nature of their habitats and resources change with the seasons and the cycle of years months and days.

Maybe it’s a thing peculiar to our location on the planet; we go from a long day that stretches into the late night to a short one with very little daylight at all. Perhaps it’s unique to the weather and environmental patterns we have: rolling mists, driving rain, hot sun and winter snow. Four seasons in one day, month and certainly year.

Whatever it is on this island we pack ourselves onto there is something beyond our lives as regimented by TV schedules, trips to the supermarket and the drive to consume and provide for a system not of our choosing. This something is, in poetic terms, a living force that can tap on your window on a windy summer night, or invite you to stare at the stars in the shivering cold. It reveals itself in the falling autumn leaves that carpet the pavements lanes and gutters and tempts you with the promise of summer in late spring. No matter how much we threaten this natural order with fracking and a demand for poisonous energy sources, this spirit will never yield.

Verifying Mental Health on ESA

When it comes to mental health, trying to get onto ESA is uniquely difficult. Of course it’s difficult, period. But I think, and I’ve seen, that mental health is peculiar in this.

The CAB needs me to get a letter from my GP to underline how my conditions affect me. Specifically this has to pertain to what the ESA descriptors require to qualify for the points awarded. It’s like a terrifying game show. Turns out, however, that my GP received a letter from the CAB asking for this already and she has responded – but, I fear, not in the way the CAB and I need. I tried to explain that the process requires she verify my explanation in response to these descriptors. Here’s an example:

ESA Brucey Forsythe: “Now for 6 points, can you tell me whether or not you can cope with small unexpected changes to your daily routine.”

This is the specific requirement for the descriptor ‘coping with changes’; in other words this is what the ESA system needs to know about in order to qualify.

Contestant Ghost Whistler: “no – change to an appointment time would be upsetting and uncomfortable (I also said to the CAB adviser that had she changed this appointment I would have struggled).

What the CAB needs is for my GP to rubber stamp this with a letter or document I can take to the tribunal. Unfortunately for me my GP doesn’t quite understand this. Again there is the lack of appreciation for what is actually required of the claimant according to the system. According to her she can’t actively verify this. Unlike, say, a broken arm (something tangible and visible), she can’t know that’s true. She can’t diagnose this.

Herein lies the problem; it seems that for mental health issues people in her position require a diagnosis. She’s happy to facilitate that (though god knows when or even if that will happen locally – never mind in time for a tribunal), but she can’t directly verify my description as above. That’s not to say she doesn’t agree, though of course we all know that’s how it will be seen. So she has sent off some evidence to the CAB sort of answering the questions. Unfortunately she couldn’t get me a copy of her answers so I have to wait for the CAB to receive her report (posted Friday) and get in touch to see whether it meets with their approval – i.e. whether they think it’s going to help. It might, but then again I fear it will not do so directly and that is the problem.

The great irony is that while GP’s speak in the language of diagnosis, the ESA assessment system does not. In her mind a diagnosis of ADD/Aspergers (or whatever) is answer enough, but to the DWP a diagnosis is irrelevant. You could present them with a diagnosis for terminal cancer and three months to live and they would only pass you for ESA if that condition triggered 15 points worth of descriptors, regardless of how you feel. When it comes to mental health, which is largely invisible and poorly understood, even by GP’s (who thus rely on diagnoses, as here), this approach is woefully inadequate: conditions fluctuate and are difficult to explain or pin down. This leaves individuals caught, once again, in the zone of uncertainty this deficient system creates.

I hope I have explained this well enough. It’s difficult to really parse because it’s subtle. In many ways it makes sense to assess what a person can or can’t do, but the problem is how. By editing the descriptors and setting the goalposts how you like you, as architect of this system, have free reign to determine who passes and who doesn’t. But remember, ESA is meant to be for people who need help – even if they can, or are even in, work. It is called Employment SUPPORT Allowance; not Incapacity Benefit.